Last night I was very honored to be invited to speak at the North Shore Challenge. This event was held to raise funds for the Harvest Project, a social service organization that helps people who are in tough circumstances help themselves.
Straight up, like most of the speakers and attendees, I wasn't quite sure what to expect of the evening. It was a new idea. It came together very quickly. There we 5 speakers and I only knew my running buddy Curb Ivanic. Although most of the speakers met briefly a few nights before, we had no time to compare our presentations, so I was a bit worried we'd be off in all directions. Then it snowed and threw traffic into chaos. As I inched my way through the snow covered side streets, I was feeling about the same as I do when I host a new Club Fat Ass event. Would anyone show up?
As it turned out, a good crowd of people braved the elements and came out to learn about how they could make 2008 their best year ever. I've been to a lot of athletic performance and healthy-living seminars. This one was particularly good as the unrehearsed message coming from 4 different health and healthy lifestyle professionals (I was the odd one out) was very complementary.
Here are the top 3 takeaways for me:
- eat less more often (e.g. graze vs 3 square meals/day)
- focus on the imporntant things in life in general rather than just your running
- eat more fruit and vegies
OK, there were about 100 other valuable hints and tips offered by the speakers, but those were the ones that I've heard 100's of times before and still not mastered, so those 3 are the ones I'm going to work on most this year.
It's a heck of a lot of work to pull something like this off successfully. Congrats, Curb and all of the other people who pulled together behind the scenes. It's also a lot of work to organize a presentation. Congrats to Chris Obst, Dr. Heidi Benda, Dana Ranaban and Curb for their very thoughtful and informative advice... and for everyone who donated draw prizes. (Just about every attendee came away with hardware!)
Given all of the hassle and committment, I'm not sure if this seminar will happen again. If you write a short comment here and there are enought comments, maybe Curb will make it happen again, raise even more money for the Harvest Project and you can benefit, too?
I will ask the other speakers can summarize their key messages here so you can think about them as you evaluate progress toward your New Years Resolutions.
Comments
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Hey EJ,
I think the night was a great success as well even though the numbers in attendance was low due to the weather. People who couldn't make it have contacted me and there is great interest in having something like this again. For those that couldn't make it, here is a very brief list of things that I wanted to highlight from my presentation:
1. Nutrition is #1 for health & fitness (you can't out-train a bad diet).
2. Eat every 2-3 hours to maximize your metabolism.
3. Everyone needs to be doing a variety of activity that covers strength training, cardio & flexibility for optimal health & performance. Skip one and you limit yourself.
4. Most of your carbohydrates should be coming from fruits & veggies (eat them at EVERY meal). Save the non-fruit & veggie carbs for days that you workout.
5. Emphasize wholesome (REAL) food in your nutrition.
6. Omega-3 EFA's (fish oil is tops) are one supplement everyone should be taking.
7. Include lean protein at every meal as well.
8. About 30% of your intake should come from fat split equally between saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.
Thanks for all your help and CFA support of the project. We'll definitely do this again!
Cheers, Curb